Missing: One Boy Next Door
by veryjaneeyre
Summary: Logan goes looking for James when he vanishes after dinner one night.


This is **Clarry**'s birthday gift. Her fic makes me smile, so she absolutely deserved something in return.

* * *

"Has either of you seen James?"

Kendall and Carlos continue on with their video game as if Logan isn't standing in front of the television, blocking at least some of their view. Logan lets a few more seconds pass by before he reaches down and smacks the power button on the game console.

Two blank looks greet him when he glances back at the couch's occupants, who have returned to sitting like normal human beings now that their focus is on Logan instead of trying to see a full screen behind him.

"I turn my back for, like, five seconds after dinner to put my plate in the sink, and he manages to vanish in that time. He's not in his bedroom, he's not in the bathroom. Where is James?"

"Dunno." Kendall places the silver game controller on the table in front of him. "Do you want us to start taping his headshots to the cartons of milk?"

Carlos mirrors Kendall's actions, laying down his controller as well. "Oh! I call 'Confused Astronaut'!"

Logan rubs his forehead. "Carlos, no one is taping James' headshots to anything milk-related. _Yet_. I'm going to head down to the lobby. Even if James isn't there, maybe somebody _helpful_ can tell me where he is."

Logan hears the video game start up behind him as he walks away and the trash talk between Kendall and Carlos gets mildly heated even before he makes it six steps out the door.

Logan stops just outside the apartment, taking out his cell phone and punching redial. Just like the ten times beforehand, James' line goes directly to voicemail. He thinks about turning around and asking Kendall or Carlos to call James, if only to verify that James isn't avoiding him, but continues on towards the elevator bank.

Once he's safely inside the elevator, Logan decides that if James isn't in the lobby, he's going to risk Bitters' wrath and step outside to get some air to clear his head. It would be so much better if he could only figure out where his boyfriend escaped to.

Logan's so focused on the thoughts in his head, the sight of Camille on the other side of the elevator doors startles him when they open. "Holy -!" Hand over his heart in an attempt to slow the rapid beat down to a more sedate pace, Logan brushes by her and scans a nearly empty lobby.

No James.

Logan swings around and slides his non self-soothing hand between the closing elevator doors just in time.

As they part, Camille looks at Logan expectantly. "Well?"

"Have you seen James? Recently?" Logan tacks on the 'recently' because he's not in the mood to play any sort of game involving semantics. He really just wants to locate James and figure out if he's being dodged.

"Last I saw him, he was headed out to your cabana about ten minutes ago. He looked kind of panicked too. I went to go ask him what was wrong, but when he saw me, he yanked the curtains shut. I think he was still upset that I didn't want to play Uno with you guys."

Logan removes his hand from the door, letting the two meet, and watches as Camille disappears from view. He refuses to let himself think anything else until he has James in front of him.

A quick glance at the reception area shows Bitters to be heavily involved in an online poker game (and no doubt, losing badly to Katie), so Logan quietly slips outside and waits until he's standing by his cabana's mailbox to softly call James' name.

When James doesn't respond, the feeling of dread grows heavier in Logan's stomach. _Let's make sure he's not actually in there before I start jumping to conclusions_, he reminds himself.

He pulls back the curtains, spotting James sitting as far back in the cabana as he can be while he whispers into his cell phone.

When James lifts his eyes to the offending light, he sees Logan and immediately stops speaking. He snaps the phone shut and offers out a feeble, "Hi."

"Are you avoiding me?" Now that Logan's found James, he gives voice to his main worry.

"Kinda."

Remembering how his mother always told him that communication is important to any relationship, Logan braces himself and asks what he might not like the answer to. "Why?"

Instead of replying, James stands and makes his way over to Logan. He grabs the genius' hand and leads him to one of the loungers outside of Bitters' peripheral view.

Logan purposely sits down at the foot end, facing James as he sits how the chair is designed. "Why?" he repeats.

James looks at Logan, and says something Logan doesn't expect at all, "I don't know what to get you for your birthday. I sorta freaked out."

"What?"

"As your boyfriend, and long-time best friend, I should know you so well that this shouldn't be a problem, but it is. At first, I thought I would buy you a book on body language. Figured you might be more comfortable around people if you knew what they were thinking just by the way they happen to be sitting, or standing, or whatever. I was excited about this idea, and then I realized that you must already know some of it, if not all of it, because how else would you have understood that I was flirting with you when you were making that awful swagger app?"

Logan smiles. "I watched your pupils dilate and your mouth part slightly. Your body language gave you away."

James responds with a small smile of his own, although it slips as he begins to speak once more. "Then, I thought a trip home would be good. It's been so long since we've seen real snow. I looked at the weather reports, and Minnesota is getting a ton of snow, which is great, but then I remembered how bad you still feel about stiffing Mrs. Magicowski, _twice_."

"Thanks for bringing it up," Logan grumbles to himself as the dormant guilt awakens.

"I knew that you would insist that we go make it right for not shoveling her walkway by doing it every day that we'd be there. I could just see myself standing behind you, whining about all sorts of little things while you calmly clear the path. And while I entertained a lovely little fantasy of us kissing as snowflakes fall around us, I couldn't get Gustavo to agree to give us time off no matter how much I begged." James holds up his phone, despair creeping into his voice. "I was begging again just now. He's still saying no."

"That's too bad. Going home with my boyfriend would have been nice. You would have been able to check up on Sebastian."

"He's the one who made me realize I have feelings for you, that I like doing things that make you happy. Which brings me to terrible idea number three: I thought we could celebrate your birthday with an Uno tournament."

Logan grins. "That's not so terrible. I like that idea."

James throws his hands into the air. "I knew you would! But everyone I approached turned down my invitation, saying that we are much too competitive. Where's the fun without the competition? How do you know who's the best?"

"I am."

"Yes, Logan. You are the Champion of Uno. I know how much you love to play, which is why I thought it'd be fun to have a tournament…only when it looked like it would be us four playing, you could call it a Thursday and then it's no longer special." James drops his head into his hands. "I'm a bad boyfriend."

Logan slides himself up the lounger and takes James' hands away from his face, keeping them firmly in his grasp. "You are _not_ a bad boyfriend. I-"

"Hey, you two! It's past curfew, get your butts inside before I give you a third strike!"

James and Logan climb to their feet and scurry past Bitters' silently, not wanting to tempt fate any more tonight.

As they wait for the elevator, Logan leans over to James and whispers, "None of your ideas are horrible. What I want most for my birthday is you. Just some good, old-fashioned time alone with my boyfriend." He pauses and waits until James peers down at him, adding with a grin, "And if you happen to wear the 'Development' lab coat, you just might get a gift too."


End file.
